Izumi Thomas is the chair of Satsuma 150 which is being celebrated in the UK this year. Satsuma 150 aims to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Satsuma students in the UK in 1865. Izumi is from Fukiage in Kagoshima and now lives in London where she is a freelance translator and a visiting researcher at the British Museum. Below is an interview with her about this year’s commemoration.

The Wellcome Collection’sspring exhibition brings together more than 300 works for the first major display of Japanese Outsider Art in the UK. The 46 artists represented in the show are residents and day attendees at social welfare institutions across Honshu, Japan’s largest island.